355. College Access and Success News

Here are links to recent news on college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. NCAA enacts broad academic, scholarship reforms, by Andy Gardiner – http://usat.ly/uy14V7 via @USATODAY - "Athletes will be eligible for up to $2,000 annually to cover incidental expenses above their basic scholarship for room, board, books and tuition. . . . Beginning with the 2012-13 school year, teams will have to post a minimum Academic Progress Rate (APR) to be eligible for bowl games, NCAA tournaments and other NCAA championships. The cutoff will start at a score of 900 (on a scale of 1000) and rise over three years to 930, which the NCAA projects to be a 50% graduation rate."

2. Ron Paul: The truth about my student loan plan – http://usat.ly/sT8hc3 via @USATODAY"The accumulated total student loan debt in this country is over $1 trillion. Think about that for a moment. Our entire national deficit for this year is $1.5 trillion, and the cost of college education alone is two-thirds of our country's entire budget shortfall. This is staggering."

3. 'The Ideal High School Graduate,' by Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/u7KJZq - "Mr. Fitzsimmons called successful applicants to Harvard “good all-arounders – academically, extracurricularly and personally,” and he stressed the importance of demonstrating humanity and three-dimensionality in one’s college application. “I want to know, what is it this person does beside chew gum and produce good grades or scores?”

4. NCAA board approves athletic eligibility rules for D-I athletes, by Allie Grasgreen Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/vtRL36 via @AddThis - "Under new rules beginning in August 2016, to be eligible for competition incoming freshmen must have a 2.3 grade point average in a set of high school core courses, up from 2.0, and the appropriate standardized test score on the NCAA’s sliding scale, which has been adjusted slightly to account for the new GPA minimum. However, under a new “academic redshirt year” model, students whose GPA falls between the old and new minimums will still be eligible to receive athletic scholarships and practice with the team in their first term of enrollment, and can practice in the next term as well as long as they pass nine semester or eight credit hours."

5. High Schools, Colleges Push Financial Literacy, by Caralee J. Adams - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/28/10finance.h31.html via @educationweek - “This budget worksheet slows you down a bit and makes you realize, ‘Hey, I have to pay this money back,’ ” said the 26-year-old, who says it took just 15 minutes to meet the college’s new financial-aid requirement. Despite qualifying for Pell Grants and veterans’ benefits, Mr. Chandler estimates he will have accumulated $45,000 in debt by the time he finishes his education, including a master’s degree."

6. Chicago to Judge High Schools by College-Readiness Metric, by Catherine Gewertz - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2011/10/chicago_to_judge_highn_schools.html via @educationweek - "A Power Point presentation given at the board of education's meeting yesterday makes the case for tightening the screws on high schools, noting that fewer than six in 10 students graduate, and that students' average ACT score is 17, short of the ACT's "college readiness" benchmark of 21. Only 8 percent of 11th graders are testing "college ready" in all subjects on the Prairie State Achievement Exam, which includes the ACT."

7. Should College Grads Get a Break on Their Loans? - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/201...

‎"Will the Obama plan make a difference? Will it help prevent defaults or will it lead today's students to borrow more, if they view their debts as potentially negotiable and if they believe the government is assuming more of the risk? What should government do about student debt and the college loan industry?"

8. Obama's student Debt Plan Is a Good First Step, by Sandy Baum - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/tHdLme - "The strength of the anti-student-loan movement and the number of students defaulting on their student loans suggest a serious lack of awareness of the repayment protections already in place. Unemployed students don’t have to make payments. But that doesn’t help people who don’t know they have this option. And stories of people unable to wade through the bureaucratic barriers to entering the Income Based Repayment plan abound."

9. Subsidizing the College Bubble, by Richard Vedder, Ohio U. - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/s6Dtij - "Our system of federal student financial assistance is broken --and very costly. It has done little to help low-income people go to college -- a smaller percentage of college graduates come from the bottom quartile of the income distribution than in 1970, before these programs were large -- and probably has contributed to the explosion of college tuition and fees."

10. Obama's Inadequate Response on Student Debt, by Anya Kamenetz - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/sj8Ebd - "But these numbers clearly show that the relief offered by income-based repayment is inadequate to the scope of the problem. It doesn’t apply to parental PLUS loans. It doesn’t apply to private, unsubsidized student loans, which bear higher interest rates, have been growing at 25 percent a year (compared with federal loans at 8 percent a year) and are on track to match the volume of federal student loans by 2025. It doesn’t help defaulted borrowers, who face lifelong nightmares of snowballing interest rates and fees with little to no possibility of relief even through bankruptcy."

11. The Worst Lesson We Could Teach, by Neal P. McCluskey - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/v8W5YZ - "What the administration is proposing isn’t all that grand: If you have debt through both the federal direct, and now-defunct guaranteed, loan programs you’ll be able to consolidate your loans and get a modest interest rate reduction. And if you don’t earn much, your maximum monthly payment could go down, with whatever debt remains forgiven after twenty years. Taxpayers will make up the revenue shortfall. That’s lovely for you if you qualify, but relatively few people will. Only around eight million of the roughly 36 million Americans who hold federal loans will probably benefit."

12. Student Debt Plan Compounds the Suffering, by Cindy Warner - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/rE4n5H - "Obama’s new plan for student loan repayment fails to address the problem of the financial industry's failure to disclose how a for-profit lender and servicer operates with its Draconian fees and penalties under the auspices of “financial aid,” or what students perceive as assistance. The financial industry failed to disclose that student loans come with no consumer protections and will remain that way for life. They are not dischargeable in bankruptcy, and if unpaid, the balance due will continue to escalate forever."

13. Intellectual Curiosity Predicts Academic Success, Study Finds - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/intellectual-curiosity-predicts-academic-success-study-finds/37502 - "Intellectual curiosity is a strong predictor of future academic performance, says an article in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. That conclusion was based on a meta-analysis of 200 previous studies of students who rated their own intellectual curiosity, among other factors. Intellectual curiosity has as large an effect on academic performance as conscientiousness, though not as much as intelligence, the article says."

14. How to Calculate the Real Cost of College, by Kayla Webley - http://ti.me/sNjxWk via @TIMEMoneyland - "The calculators, which are mandated by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, come up with net prices for individuals by taking the estimated costs — including tuition, fees, housing, books, transportation and other expenses — and subtracting the estimated aid a particular student is likely to receive, based on financial need and academic achievement. This aid comes in the form of scholarships from the school and grants (i.e., free money) from the federal government. After the net price is predicted, the calculators go a step further and detail the savings that could come from utilizing government-backed loans, which have low, fixed interest rates, and participating in a school’s work-study program."

15. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories on college access and success via @rottenbornj ▸ http://paper.li/rottenbornj#

354. College Access and Success News

Here are links to recent news on college access and success.
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Colleges start offering 'midnight classes' for offbeat needs, by Greg Toppo – http://usat.ly/tJVA6H via @USATODAY - "About two-thirds of community college students work full or part time, and colleges are finding that many of their students work late. Others simply do their best work at night, says Community College of Baltimore County (Md.) psychology instructor Joy Goodie."

2. Plan hopes to make student loans more forgiving, by Sandra Block – http://usat.ly/t0bw4p via @USATODAY - "The Obama plan doesn't provide any relief for borrowers who have private student loans, which are issued by private lenders and aren't backed by the federal government, Ryan says. Unlike federal student loans, private loans have variable interest rates that may shoot higher after the borrower graduates. They also lack many of the protections that come with federal loans. Borrowers who are having trouble repaying these loans have few options, other than seeking relief from the lender."

3. Trustees OK pact at YSU, by Virginia Shank - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH: http://bit.ly/vUhave via AddThis - "Both unions, which represent the university's two largest groups of employees, had been working without contracts since their previous pacts expired in August. YSU-OEA had announced plans to strike in August but called it off in time for classes to start on time Aug. 27."

4. Robert J. Zimmer on the Value of a Liberal Arts Diploma, by Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/u3PzmX - “There are arguments about the value of liberal arts education. Tuition costs are a major concern. There are financial and political pressures on institutions to show immediate value,” Mr. Zimmer conceded. But, ultimately, he said, such concerns should not obscure the mission of liberal arts institutions: “to help students lead fuller lives and be better citizens.”

5. That Merit-Based Aid Offer Is Final, Universities Insist, by Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/uP6tYf - "At Purdue University, merit-based financial aid offers are final and nonnegotiable. “We put that on our Web site — in red,” said Pamela Horne, dean of admissions and associate vice provost for enrollment management at Purdue. . . . Ultimately, the panelists agreed that the purpose of merit aid was to help the institution “shape the class,” in Ms. Horne’s words. “People think merit aid is all about rewarding the student,” she said. “Let’s face it – it’s not.” Mr. Nondorf agreed. “Getting in is the reward for all that hard work,” he said."

6. The Student Loan Proposal: What It Might Mean for You, by Mark Kantrowitz: http://nyti.ms/sHTQaM - "To help students avoid borrowing too much, the Obama administration is introducing a standardized financial aid offer form as part of a new “Know Before You Owe” campaign. This form helps students understand how much a college will cost, including how much debt they will have accumulated by the time they’ve graduated."

7. College Prices Continue to Surge Higher, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/college-prices-continue-to-surge-higher/7039/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "Among states, California wins the dubious prize of boosting tuition by the greatest percentage. California residents watched helplessly as their tuition and fees jumped 21%. The states with the next highest rate hikes were Arizona (17%) and Washington (16%). States with low tuition increases included Connecticut and South Carolina that raised prices by 2.5%. Clearly, a major factor in mushrooming tuition at public universities is declining support from state governments."

8. College Costs Shifting to Families - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/26/464787uscollegecostsnlysis_ap.html - "It was a transformation that was, by historical standards, remarkably swift: The decade of the 2000s saw a fundamental shift in how Americans answer the question "Who will pay for college?" More than ever, students and their families must foot the bill at public universities. And that bill is higher than ever.Realizing higher education would be essential to succeed in the emerging economy, Americans aspired and flocked to higher education as never before over the last 10 years. But over that same span, the 50 states did less—much less, factoring in the increased demand—and asked students and parents to do more."

9. Clearing Up Some Confusion About the New Federal Student Loan Rules,by Ron Lieber - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/your-money/student-loans/explaining-new-federal-student-loan-rules.html?_r=1&hpw - "Many questions had to do with whether private loans, the kind that come from banks and often have higher and variable interest rates, are part of these changes. Nothing is changing with those loans. This is crucial, since many of the people in the worst sort of trouble — the ones you’ve read about with six-figure balances — often have both private loans and federal loans. Instead, only those with different kinds of federal loans — an estimated 5.8 million borrowers — will be able to consolidate them into one loan under the new plan and also save themselves a bit of money."

10. Editorial: The Wrong Fix for No Child Left Behind - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/opinion/the-wrong-fix-for-no-child-left-behind.html?src=rechp - "The revised No Child Left Behind Act that passed out of the Senate education committee last week goes too far in relaxing state accountability and federal oversight of student achievement. The business community, civil rights groups and advocates of disabled children are rightly worried that the rewrite of the law would particularly hurt underprivileged children."

11. How Much Student-Loan Debt Is Too Much? by Jeff Selingo -http://chronicle.com/blogs/next/2011/10/26/how-much-student-loan-debt-is-too-much/ - "More than half of the students at public and private four-year colleges are now graduating with debt, according to the College Board. The average per borrower at public colleges is $22,000; at private colleges it’s $28,100. It has been reported that the financial payoff of a bachelor’s degree is $550,000 over a person’s lifetime, so the average level of debt still seems like a good investment."

12. Why College Tuition Should Be Regulated, by Steven Goodman - http://ti.me/uEmjTD via @TIMEIdeas - "Since loans now comprise 70% of financial aid packages, the growing tuition burden falls squarely on student-borrowers who may have saved for college but who still can’t meet the high cost of attendance. Two-thirds of American undergraduates are in debt. This year, student loan debt will grow to more than a trillion dollars, outpacing credit card debt for the first time."

353. College Access and Success News

Here are links to recent news on college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Obama to offer help for students buried in debt, by Jennifer Liberto - http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/25/news/economy/Obama_student_loan/ via CNNMoney.com - "One of the proposals would push up the start date for more favorable terms on a special loan repayment program based on income, said White House domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes. Another measure would encourage graduates with two or more different kinds of federal loans to consolidate them and get a small break on interest rates. . . . Average student loan debt for the graduating class of 2009 at four-year nonprofit colleges was $24,000, including all private and federal loans, according to the Institute for College Access & Success."

2. See how much debt college will really put you in, by Blake Ellis - http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/26/pf/college_financial_aid/ via @CNNMoney - "Figuring out how much college is going to cost you is about to get much easier.At least that's what the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Education are hoping to do with a one-page "financial aid shopping sheet." The sheet will clearly break down the amount of aid a student will qualify for at a particular college, as well as how much debt they will end up with once they graduate."

3. College costs climb, yet again, by Kim Clark - http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/26/pf/college/college_tuition_cost/ via @CNNMoney - "The sticker price of studying and living on campus at the average public university rose 5.4% for in-state students, or about $1,100, to $21,447 this fall, the College Board estimated. . . . The sticker price of living and studying for a year at a typical private college rose 4.3% to $42,224 this year."

4. Tuition and fees rise more than 8% at U.S. public colleges, by Mary Beth Marklein – http://usat.ly/tL8dPk via @USATODAY - "That increase is more than double the inflation rate of 3.6% between July 2010 and July 2011. Family earnings dropped across all income levels. And state funding per student declined by 4% in 2010, the latest year available, and 23% over the past decade, the report says."

5. Obama proposes changes to student loan programs, by Libby A. Nelson Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/vkz5l3 via AddThis - "The majority of borrowers affected will be students who borrowed money under both the Federal Family Education Loan Program, when banks issued federal student loans and collected government subsidies, and the Direct Loan Program, under which the federal government lends money directly to students.The government began originating all loans through direct lending in 2010, when a provision to eliminate bank-based student lending was included in the administration’s health care overhaul. But many students who were enrolled at the time of the change have loans in both programs, meaning they make two payments."

6. Reports find student aid shift from states to federal government, by Kevin Kiley Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/tkwJXL via @AddThis - "Sandy Baum, a policy analyst for the College Board and co-author of the reports, said the federal government is stepping in to fill a financial void created by states' decreased ability and willingness to fund public colleges and universities. “In a way, the burden of paying for higher education is shifting from the states to the federal government,” she said."

7. NCAA data show more athletes graduating from college, by Allie Grasgreen Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/tHDuCL via @AddThis - "The two sports of greatest concern are also the ones that bring in the most money. While the football and men’s basketball graduation success rates this year either rose slightly or stayed steady, the rates are still significantly lower than the overall NCAA average of 82 percent. Male basketball players are graduating at a rate two points higher this year, at 68 percent, while the football GSR dropped 0.6 points to 68.6 percent."

8. Solving the Nation's Dropout Crisis, by Russell W. Rumberger, Education Week - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/26/09rumberger_ep.h31.html - "Past efforts to solve the nation’s dropout crisis have largely been unsuccessful. Government agencies and private foundations have collectively invested billions of dollars in dropout-prevention programs, comprehensive school reform models, and new charter schools. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation alone invested more than $2 billion in small high schools, yet research has identified few effective models. In a 2008 review of 22 dropout-prevention programs, the federal government’s What Works Clearinghouse did not find a single program proven to raise high school graduation rates, which is stunning."

9. Hechinger Report Companies, nonprofits making millions off teacher effectiveness push, by Sarah Garland: http://hechingerreport.org/content/companies-nonprofits-making-millions-off-teacher-effectiveness-push_6582/#.TqgVLnjBHSY.twitter via AddThis - "New education reforms often translate into big money for private groups. Following the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, states paid millions of dollars annually to companies to develop and administer the standardized tests required under the law. Companies also cashed in on a provision mandating tutoring for students at struggling schools. . . . In Florida, the state paid Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a for-profit textbook publisher, $4.8 million to develop classroom observation methods and nearly $4 million to the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit, to create a value-added model for grading teachers based on student test scores, according to state officials."

10. Irish Student-Athletes Again Rank Number One In 2011 NCAA Graduation Success Rates - UND.COM - Univ - http://www.und.com/genrel/102511aaa.html

11. Post Your Questions on the New Student Loan Developments, by Ron Lieber: http://nyti.ms/rGFakB - "On Wednesday, President Obama plans to announce a number of changes in the federal student loan program. The initiatives will allow people to consolidate federal loans in new ways and also make the repayment program that is based on borrowers’ incomes more generous. The White House has outlined some of the changes on its Web site. What questions do you have about how all of this will work?"

12. Counseling Parents, With Some Help From a New Calculator, by Beckie Supiano -http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/counseling-parents-with-some-help-from-a-new-calculator/29091 - "When prospective students visit campus, Mr. Gudvangen has found that most of the questions about paying the bill come from parents, since they’re the ones who understand the family’s financial position. “This is an odd time in families’ lives,” he says. “At some point, students probably need to know these things, but they probably don’t as high-school seniors.”

13. Rise in Sticker Price at Public Colleges Outpaces That at Private Colleges for 5th Year in a Row, by Beckie Supiano - http://chronicle.com/article/Rise-in-Sticker-Price-at/129532/ - "For the fifth year in a row, the percentage increase in average published tuition and fees at public four-year colleges was higher than it was at private ones, according to the report, "Trends in College Pricing 2011." The report, released on Wednesday, examines annual changes in colleges' sticker prices, as well as the net prices students pay after grant aid and tax benefits are considered. A companion report, "Trends in Student Aid 2011," looks at the money that helps students meet those growing prices. (The pricing report looks at data through this academic year, while the student-aid report has information through 2010-11.)"

14. Institutions Charging More Than $50K for Tuition, Fees, Room, and Board -http://chronicle.com/article/Sortable-Table-Institutions/129527/ - "The 50K club is getting crowded: 123 institutions now charge $50,000 or more for tuition, fees, room, and board, according to data released by the College Board. That's up from last year, when 100 colleges and universities charged that much.Here are the institutions charging $50,000 or more:"

15. College Prices Up as States Slash Budgets, by Justin Pope - http://ti.me/uvSV9C via Time.com - "The states cut budgets, the price goes up, and the (federal) money goes to that," said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. "For 25 years we've been putting more and more money into financial aid, and tuition keeps going up. We're on a national treadmill."

16. Ravitch: ditch NCLB, not tinker with it -http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/ravitch-congress-should-ditch-nclb-not-tinker-with-it/2011/10/25/gIQAtgkmHM_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost -

"The federal government does not know how to reform schools. Period. Congress doesn’t, and the U.S. Department of Education doesn’t. The fundamental role of the federal government should be to advance equality of educational opportunity. That’s a tall order. Congress should revive the commitments made in 1965, when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed: To use federal resources on behalf of the neediest students; to protect the civil rights of students; to conduct research about education; to report on the condition and progress of American education."

334. College Access and Success News

Here are links to recent news on college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. 7 arrested in alleged SAT cheating scam, by Brad Lendon – This Just In - http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/28/7-arrested-in-alleged-sat-cheating-scam/ via @cnn -"Prosecutors allege Eshaghoff impersonated six Great Neck North High students between 2010 and 2011, charging between $1,500 and $2,500 to take the SAT test for them. Eshaghoff would take the test at schools other than Great Neck, where proctors would not be familiar with the students' identity, and present fake, unofficial identification, prosecutors say."

2. More financial help for NCAA athletes on the way, by Steve Wieberg – http://usat.ly/nHjyfJ via USAToday - "A committee weighing a number of potential changes is expected to recommend that the value of individual scholarships be raised by as much as $2,000 in the top-tier Division I, moving them closer to covering the athletes' full cost of attending school. Full grants currently cover only room, board, books and tuition. The NCAA's Division I board of directors would act on the proposal when it meets Oct. 26 and 27 in Indianapolis."

3. YSU, faculty reach deal, by Virginia Shank - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH: http://bit.ly/qvYc6Y via @AddThis - "The two sides issued the joint statement after meeting Wednesday morning that explains they resolved the remaining provisions in the proposed contract. Union leaders said the proposal is a revision of the "best and final" offer administrators made last month that the faculty ultimately rejected. YSU-OEA and the YSU Board of Trustees are planning to review and vote on ratification of the tentative agreement early next week. They said details of the agreement would not be released until after the votes."

4. At Seton Hall, Sharp Cuts in Tuition for Those With Good Grades and SATs, by Jacques Steinberg: http://nyti.ms/qtODVZ - "How would one qualify for this discount, which Mr. Perez-Pena describes as equal to about two-thirds of this year’s $31,440 tuition? (Room, board and other fees add about $13,000, for a total annual bill of nearly $42,000.) Writes Mr. Perez-Pena:Students must graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes and have a combined score of at least 1,200 on their math and reading SATs — but no less than 550 on each — or an ACT score of 27. Mr. Perez-Pena says that the experts on admissions and financial aid whom he consulted “knew of no other college providing such a blanket discount for top-flight students.”

5. Going Off on Online Rankings, by Paul Fain - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/qkJb76 via @AddThis - "The publication is analyzing six types of online academic programs for the new rankings: baccalaureate degree programs and master’s degrees in business, computer information technology, education, engineering and nursing. Both for-profits and nonprofits with substantial online offerings, like UMassOnline and the University of Maryland University College, were asked to participate. (To be eligible, programs need to have coursework that is collectively at least 80 percent online, according to a web presentation by U.S. News officials.)"

6. Dump the Slump, by Allie Grasgreen - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/qMGfV2 via @AddThis - “The sophomore year is a time of transition, where students sometimes do feel like they’re in a slump. They’re not yet necessarily deeply on their track toward whatever their path is, but they’re no longer in that special moment of being the first-year class whom everybody dotes on,” said Stephen Nowicki, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education at Duke."

7. Academic Performance and the BCS, by John V. Lombardi, Elizabeth D. Capaldi, and Craig W. Abbey - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/o2zBdW - "It will come as no real surprise to those who watch our academic landscape to discover that the Big 10 leads the field with an academic distinction index of 55, followed closely by the Pac-12 with 48. The ACC falls some distance behind with an index of 28.5 and the SEC a significant distance away at 14, followed closely by the Big-Twelve and the Big East at 12. As a reference, we also constructed an index for the Ivy League, to put all this into perspective. This premier academic conference would fall into second place, after the Big-10 and before the Pac-12."

8. The Man Behind the Controversial College Rankings, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/the-man-behind-the-controversial-college-rankings/6761/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "What you probably don’t know, however, is who is responsible for the rankings’ controversial methodology. The person behind the college rankings is Robert Morse, who is US News’ director of data research. At the annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling last week in New Orleans, I interviewed Morse about his rankings baby. Here’s what he had to say."

9. Politics K-12: Roadmap to Winning an NCLB Waiver, by Michele McNeil - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/09/_overall_instructions_a_plan.html via @educationweek - "Then, the peer reviewers will drill down and focus on the three main commitments states have to make to get more freedom under NCLB. On adopting college and career ready standards: Judges will ask: Is there a plan to provide professional development to teachers and principals? . . . On adopting guidelines to improve teacher and principal effectiveness: Is student growth a significant enough part of the new evaluation system to differentiate among teachers who have made "significantly different contributions" (emphasis added) to student growth or closing achievement gaps?"

10. Politics K-12: Obama to Nation's Students: Aim for College, and Innovate, by Alyson Klein - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/09/obama_to_nations_students_aim.html via @educationweek - "This year's remarks were pretty innocuous. They focused on urging students to push themselves academically and set high goals, namely pursuing education or postsecondary training after high school, and finishing those studies. "If that means college for you, just getting into college isn't enough," Obama said. "You've got to graduate. ... Our country used to have the world's highest proportion of of young people with a college degree. We now rank 16th. That's not good enough. We need your generation to bring us back to the top."

11. Hispanic Children in Poverty Exceed Whites, Study Finds, by Sabrina Tavernise - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/us/hispanic-children-in-poverty-surpass-whites-study-finds.html?src=rechp - "While the number of Hispanic children in poverty is the highest ever, the poverty rate — 35 percent in 2010 — is well under its 1994 peak of 41 percent. Nor do Hispanics have the largest share in poverty of all racial and ethnic groups. In 2010, 39.1 percent of black children — 4.3 million — lived in poverty, as did 12.4 percent of white children. . . . And Hispanic children in poverty are more likely to live in married couple families than either non-Hispanic whites or African-Americans, according to the report, a pattern that can help cushion an economic fall. Forty-six percent of Hispanic children lived in married couple families in 2010, compared with 41 percent of whites and 16 percent of African-Americans."

12. Coming Together to Dismantle Education Reform, by Andrew J. Rotherham - http://ti.me/mPIiso via @TIME - "As evidence of the severe disconnect between the state's high standards on paper and lax enforcement in practice, consider that 98% of schools in Virginia — a state system I know well, since I served as a member of its board of education for four years — are fully accredited under the state's rules. But just 22% of the Hispanic students and 14% of the African-American students who attend these schools are reading at the "proficient" level on the National Assessment of Education Progress by eighth grade. Hard to square that with a 98% success rate."

330. College Access and Success News

Here are links to recent news on college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Could No Child Left Behind be history? by Lesa Jansen – http://whitehouse.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/22/could-no-child-left-behind-be-history/ via CNN - "Friday, President Obama will announce that his administration will begin reviewing state's applications to waive the No Child Left Behind requirements in return for tangible commitments to close achievement gaps."

2. Obama rolling back Bush-era education law – http://usat.ly/o6QD75 via @USATODAY -"Under the plan Obama was to outline Friday, states would be allowed to ask the Education Department to be exempted from some of the law's requirements if they meet certain conditions. That includes enacting standards to prepare students for college and careers and setting evaluation standards for teachers and principals."

3. Serving Soldiers? by Paul Fain - Inside Higher Ed http://bit.ly/pLSXLQ via AddThis - "At issue is the $4.4 billion in Post-9/11 G.I. Bill benefits distributed last year by the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as tuition assistance for service members. For-profit colleges received about $1.6 billion, or 37 percent, of that amount, according to a report released Thursday by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Eight of the 10 institutions receiving the largest amounts are for-profits, and they raked in a combined total of more than $1 billion."

4. The Secret College Advantage: Money Talks, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/the-secret-college-advantage-money-talks/6671/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "According to Inside Higher Ed, some schools are so eager to attract students who can pay full price that they admit them despite lower grades and test scores. The interest in full-pay students is so strong that 10 percent of four-year colleges report that the full-pay students they are admitting have lower grades and test scores than do other admitted applicants."

5. Obama Administration Sets Rules for NCLB Waivers, by Alyson Klein - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k%2012/2011/09/obama_administration_sets_rule.html via @educationweek - "The waiver plan also appears to back off on a specific deadline for bringing all students to proficiency, a key facet of the current law. The blueprint would also have called for states to set a goal of having all students be proficient on state tests by 2020, as opposed to the 2013-14 school year in current law. But the waiver plan doesn't set a particular end date. Instead, states would still disaggregate data and set performance targets for every school and every student subgroup, and then set "ambitious but achieveable goals". They could set goals, for instance, to cut the achievement gap in half in six years."

6. Colleges Try to Unlock Secrets to Student Retention, by Caralee J. Adams - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/09/21/04college_ep.h31.html via @educationweek -"The gap between access and completion has put a new focus on ramping up retention—the percentage of freshmen who return to the same institution for a second year of college. And that’s a task, observers say, for precollegiate educators as well as their college counterparts. . . . Students’ lack of academic preparation in K-12 and lack of commitment to earning a degree were among the top reasons for attrition, according to the ACT retention survey."

7. No Child Left Behind Waivers for States, by Sam Dillon: http://nyti.ms/nup3sc -"Under the new policy, only those states that have adopted new academic standards that the administration calls “college and career ready” will be eligible to receive the waivers, according to White House documents distributed on Thursday."

8. Single-Sex Education Is Assailed in Report, by Tamar Lewin - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/education/23single.html?src=recg - "It asserts that “sex-segregated education is deeply misguided and often justified by weak, cherry-picked or misconstrued scientific claims rather than by valid scientific evidence.” But the strongest argument against single-sex education, the article said, is that it reduces boys’ and girls’ opportunities to work together, and reinforces sex stereotypes. “Boys who spend more time with other boys become increasingly aggressive,” the article said. “Similarly, girls who spend more time with other girls become more sex-typed.”

9. Highlighting Flow of Military Benefits to For-Profits, Senators Seek Changes in Key Rule, by Kelly Field -http://chronicle.com/article/Senators-Put-Spotlight-on/129127/ - "Under the 90/10 rule, for-profit colleges must receive at least 10 percent of their revenue from nonfederal sources to be eligible to receive federal student aid. But military benefits aren't counted as part of the federal share, so some colleges have courted veterans as a way to ensure their compliance with the rule. To discourage this practice, Democrats—and many veterans groups—want to include military money on the federal side of the formula."

10. Don Quixote, College Choice, and the Myth of Fit, by Mark Moody -http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/don-quixote-college-choice-and-the-myth-of-fit/28781 - "There is a popular slogan posted in many college counseling offices: “College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won.” This statement has become a mantra we repeat to families as an antidote to the media-driven obsession with rank, reputation, and prestige. . . . Our colleague Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions and financial aid at Kenyon College, once captured the frustration of a conversation about the whole business of Fit when she exclaimed, “Fit happens!” Happily, this tongue-in-cheek phrase nails it. We hope it can become the new counseling office motto, opening our kids to unexpected possibilities and a more authentic, empowering and reflective transition to the next phase of their lives."

11. A New ‘Poor Students Need Not Apply’ Policy at College? by Brad Tuttle - http://ti.me/oMI8Yd via @TIMEMoneyland - "Many American universities admit that they are actively trying to recruit students who don’t need financial aid and will pay full, non-discounted tuition. Sometimes, these students aren’t as qualified as other applicants, but they get in anyway because they’re willing to pay up."

12. Top 10 myths of college admissions, by Steve Cohen - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/top-10-myths-of-college-admissions/2011/09/22/gIQAEn8XoK_blog.html via Washingtonpost.com -"Unfortunately, many parents are navigating this world wearing blinders. They’re operating on rumor, wishful thinking, or outdated notions of how the system worked when they applied. Let’s address the top 10 myths."

13. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories about college access and success, via @rottenbornj ▸ http://t.co/x7cmxSo

7.

300. Summer College News

Here are some links to today's stories
about college access and success.
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Column: Obama should tout fight for minority education, by DeWayne Wickham - http://t.co/8rdfOkq via @USATODAY - "We have launched more investigations than ever before. Much broader, bigger investigations" into whether school officials are unfairly disciplining black kids and shoving them "into the cradle-to-prison pipeline instead of the cradle-to-career pipeline," she told me."

2. Freedom at a Price, by Kevin Kiley - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/pE8Ljj via @AddThis - "While details of the Ohio plan will not be final until Thursday's presentation, a draft of the plan released July 18 calls for immediately freeing all universities from certain regulatory restrictions, such as state health and safety codes, and eliminating enrollment caps. The draft also calls for giving the universities complete control of the management of their employees and exempting them from the purview of the state personnel board of review.
The universities would then be measured annually on a set of metrics that include student outcomes, such as graduation and retention rates; degree production in science, technology, engineering, and math fields; and the percentage of students participating in internship programs, as well as financial measures such as endowment size, affordability measured as a percentage of the consumer price index, and the unallocated cash balance as a percentage of total operating expenses."

3. Value of the Liberal Arts, by Katharine Brooks - http://t.co/iitPEnE - "In today’s Academic Minute, Katharine Brooks of the University of Texas at Austin answers “the question” faced by many college students."

4. Education Management Corporation Accused of Widespread Fraud, by Tamar Lewin: http://nyti.ms/qsJS2E - "The Department of Justice and four states on Monday filed a multibillion-dollar fraud suit against the Education Management Corporation, the nation’s second-largest for-profit college company, charging that it was not eligible for the $11 billion in state and federal financial aid it had received from July 2003 through June 2011.Education Management, which is based in Pittsburgh and is 41 percent owned by Goldman Sachs, enrolls about 150,000 students in 105 schools operating under four names: Art Institute, Argosy University, Brown Mackie College and South University. In a statement Monday, the company denied any wrongdoing."

5. Kaplan Revenue Down 29% in Second Quarter - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/kaplan-revenue-down-29-in-second-quarter/35148 - "The decline comes at a time when federal agencies and state legislators are more strictly regulating recruitment practices at for-profit colleges, and are increasingly holding them accountable for their graduates’ ability to find employment and repay their loans. As a result of those restrictions, as well as what the company calls “generally lower demand,” new enrollments dropped 47 percent from the second quarter last year."

6. Nonprofit Group Says CA Latinos Crucial to National Degree-Attainment Goals, by Molly Redden - http://chronicle.com/article/Nonprofit-Group-Says/128558/ - "Unless California is able to increase the number of its Latinos with college degrees, the United States will fall short of having the world's highest proportion of college graduates by 2020, according to the advocacy group Excelencia in Education. . . . Excelencia found that while first-time, full-time white college students complete degrees at a rate of about 47 percent, the same group of Latino students attain credentials at a rate of only about 35 percent."

7. #College101: Freshman year bucket list, by Jenna Johnson - Campus Overload - http://t.co/v7UEBbH via @washingtonpost - "Last week I shared a list of tips for surviving freshman year and asked you to share your tips for incoming freshmen . . . . The response was overwhelming. I combed through hundreds of tips and edited them into this 50-item “bucket list.” I suggest that you print it out, tape it to the back of your closet door and cross things off as you do them."

8. Top 10 Most Athletic Colleges - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/09/top-10-most-athletic-coll_n_921913.html#s325405&title=1_Stanford_Cardinals6615 - "Our friends at CampusSplash crunched the numbers to figure out the 25 most athletic colleges in the United States. They looked at everything from number of sports, to number of titles, program revenue and more. Below check out a slideshow of the top 10 schools . . . ."

281. Summer College News

Here are some links to today's stories
about college access and success.
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories via @rottenbornj ▸ http://t.co/UftEiOc

2. Why you want to go to college: In 140 characters or less, by Luke Kerr-Dineen and Natalie DiBlasio - http://usat.ly/qOERgx via @USATODAY - "At the University of Iowa, a good tweet is worth $37,000. That's the price of a full scholarship, and that's exactly what a student hopeful can win in a contest the university has dreamed up that takes electronic communication to a new level. The university is asking prospective students to submit a 140-character tweet in place of a second essay."

3. AFT teachers union to defend educators in cheating scandals, by Greg Toppo - http://usat.ly/nyANPN via @USATODAY - "Weingarten noted that local union affiliates in Atlanta and elsewhere have been among the first to ferret out cheating among their ranks.In Atlanta, the union in 2005 "blew the whistle on this, and it was ignored because there was this enormous pressure to meet (testing) targets," she said. "Targets became more important than learning and a climate, as the governor said, that was intimidating and that was fearful and that was retailiating against anyone who came forward."

4. Colleges replacing loans with no-pay grants for their neediest students, by Daniel de Vise - http://t.co/vqM8MXh via @washingtonpost - “They’re essentially chasing after the same group of low-income students who are academically talented,” said Mark Kantrowitz, an industry expert who is tracking 73 colleges that have eliminated or capped student loans. “If you get in, these schools are a great deal.”

5. The 12 best college financial aid policies - College, Inc., by Daniel de Vise - http://t.co/66dHIwK via @washingtonpost - "In today’s paper, I write about the trend toward “no-loan” financial aid pledges at some of the nation’s top universities. More than 70 schools have replaced loans with grants in at least some of their aid awards, focusing on the neediest students.I resisted the temptation, in that story, to rattle off a list of the schools with the best aid policies. So, why not do it here?"

6. Financial Aid Pledges to Reduce Student Debt (2009-10), The Project on Student Debt - http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php - "A number of colleges have developed financial aid policies that limit or eliminate student loans from financial aid packages, reducing costs for students and families. We have analyzed each of these programs and include information here for the programs that meet our guidelines."

7. Preparing for college with a learning disability - Campus Overload, by Meghan Benzel - http://t.co/VUpOrWy via @washingtonpost - "I am a non-visual learner, and I have AD/HD and components of Asperger’s Syndrome. For those of you preparing for college with a learning disability: I understand. I’ve been there."

8. The PREPPIEST Schools Of 2011, by Lindsay Dittman - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/11/the-preppiest-schools-of-_n_894320.html#s305674&title=University_Of_Virginia - Which university in Ohio made this list?

9. Education Needs to Break With Tradition - Room for Debate: How to Improve Summer School - http://nyti.ms/nMFuzw - ". . . Is there a way to make summer school more cost effective or, with tight budgets, does it make sense to cut them? What are the best methods for making sure students are learning what they need to learn in the summer and not losing ground?"

10. How to Save on College Tuition, by Princess Clark-Wendel -http://t.co/dgO4nrq via @foxbusiness - "At a time when many families are strapped for cash, the cost of college tuition is steadily climbing. New research shows that the median income in the United States has held steady around $33,000 since 1998 while college tuition has more than doubled.Here are nine ways to help cover the cost of tuition."

11. Hechinger Report Two years after Obama’s college graduation initiative, major obstacles remain, by Jon Marcus: http://bit.ly/pbgf3C - "Only one in five of those who enroll in community colleges—and, in some states, barely one in 10—graduates in three years, while only about half of students who go to universities get their bachelor’s degrees within six. That has helped to push the United States from first to 10th in the world in the proportion of the population that has graduated from college, threatening to make this generation of college-age Americans the first to be less well-educated than their parents."

274. Review of College News

Here are some links to today's stories

about college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories via @rottenbornj ▸ http://t.co/UftEiOc

2. On Athletes and Aid, by David Moltz - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/iBPqNc - "The report finds that 10 institutions violated the division’s financial aid regulations in 2010-11. Five of those colleges were found to have considered athletics participation in the awarding of leadership grants. The others were revealed to have had an unjustified difference in how they awarded aid to athletes and non-athletes. This is the highest number of violators since 2007-8, when 12 institutions were found to have committed financial aid violations."

3. States Target Early Years to Reach 3rd Grade Reading Goals, by Catherine Gewertz - http://t.co/FuPlF4O via @educationweek - "In drafting laws and designing initiatives, politicians and educators are relying on a growing mound of research that points to 3rd grade reading proficiency as a crucial milestone. One of the latest studies, released in April, found that children who aren’t reading on grade level by 3rd grade are four times less likely to graduate from high school by age 19 than peers who are. If those struggling readers are poor, they’re 13 times likelier to be high school dropouts than their reading-proficient peers."

4. Are Obama's higher education goals enough? - http://t.co/H9zUC2I - "In 1980 for instance, salary for those with a bachelor’s degree was 40 percent larger than those with a high school degree. By 2010 that it was 74 percent larger and if recent trends continue, by 2025 those with a bachelor’s degree will earn 96 percent more than those with a high school diploma."

5. Universities turn to outsourced instructors, by Didi Tang - http://usat.ly/lbvCA6 via @USATODAY - "But the teachers won't be on the university payroll.They work for St. Petersburg-based Poynter Institute, a non-profit journalism training group, which has agreed to supply the university with instructors for the class via the Internet."

6. The Service of Democratic Education, by Linda Darling-Hammond - http://www.thenation.com/article/160850/service-democratic-education - "And remember, as Robert F. Kennedy observed: It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."

7. Matthew Lynch: Educating and Nurturing Homeless Students - http://www.educationnews.org/?p=158251 - "Homeless children deserve a quality education just like all students."

8. College Costs You're Not Considering, But Really Should Be - Unigo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/unigo/extra-costs-college_b_886009.html - "The cost of college is often considered to be some combination of tuition, room & board, textbooks, and a basic food plan. Inevitably though, a coffee here, a new shirt there, a lab fee for some goggles and a tablecloth-white jacket, and students are quickly finding themselves scrounging for some extra cash. Hear some of the under the radar costs that can add up quickly for incoming freshman."

202. Unstack the Odds--Set at Birth? Part 1

Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!

by

Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Are the odds being stacked at birth against some kids going to college and graduating?

“Who gets a bachelor’s degree from college by age 24 is largely determined at birth.”

--Thomas Mortenson, “Family Income and Higher Education Opportunity, 1970-2002,” Postsecondary Education Opportunity 143 (May 2004): I-13 in Peter Sacks, Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007), p. 4.

On February 24, 2009, President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress. In that speech, the President said the nation must face “. . . the urgent need to expand the promise of education in America.” As President Obama put it: “Right now, three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma. And yet, just over half of our citizens have that level of education. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation. And half of the students who begin college never finish.”

The President continued: “. . . it will be the goal of this administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education – from the day they are born to the day they begin a career.” Then, he announced this national goal in unmistakable language: “That is why we will provide the support necessary for you to complete college and meet a new goal: by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. “ (Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery Address to Joint Session of Congress, Tuesday, February 24th, 2009.) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-of-President-Barack-Obama-Address-to-Joint-Session-of-Congress/

However, despite this presidential address—and the media attention in recent years given to the importance of continuing education beyond graduation from high school--many students are failing to matriculate and graduate from college—in no small part, it seems, because the odds are stacked against them. Simply put, when it comes to college access and success today, many American students are being left out.

As Peter Sacks put it in an interview about his book Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education, “Instead of a system of equal educational opportunity, we are creating a system of educational haves and have-nots that increasingly is based upon birthright. Yes, a system based upon class origins.”—Scott Jaschik, “Tearing Down the Gates,” Inside Higher Ed, May 9, 2007.-- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/09/sacks

192. MVCAP fyi

See free MVCAP e-books on college admissions and financial aid for sharing, printing, and downloading at our online resource library: http://issuu.com/mvcap

1. Too many hours on the job could put high school teens at risk, by Sophie Terbush - USATODAY.com: http://t.co/Z6JboyT

‎"According to the study, students who worked more than 20 hours a week had lower expectations for educational attainment, lower school engagement, higher levels of substance abuse, and other problem behavior. However, these same students also showed more autonomous decision-making and had slightly higher grade point averages than teens without jobs."

2. A College Opts Out of the Admissions Arms Race, by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/fXDWPs

“You know as well as I that those numbers aren’t real,” Mr. DiFeliciantonio said by phone from the school’s campus in Collegeville, Pa. “People count anything that moves as an application. Everyone is going up 10 percent every year for 20 years. It’s absurd.” “At some point,” he added, “the credibility of those numbers is questionable.”

3. Maximum Pell, at All Costs, by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/eFSFu2

‎"While the GOP measure would slash the maximum Pell Grant by $845, end funding for several other student aid programs (as well as the AmeriCorps national service program), and slice billions of dollars from agencies that support academic research, the Obama budget for 2012 keeps those and other programs largely intact."

4. Where Are the Student Voices? by Tara Watford, Vicki Park, and Mike Rose - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/fwG6QQ

‎"A recent study from the Institute for Higher Education Policy found that about half of low-income young adults in the United States enroll in higher education, but only 11 percent of them earn a postsecondary degree. . . . Low-income students, compared to their middle-class peers, tend to have longer transitions between high school and college and, once there, lower retention."

5. ‘Tiger Mother’ meets reality: Asian-American students struggle, too, by Jennifer Oldham - Hechinger Report: http://t.co/KBMPjh1

‎"Like Lo, about half of the nation’s Asian-American students enroll in community college, where they often struggle to pay for classes and scramble to find room in remedial courses. They get far less attention than overachievers like Chua’s highly micromanaged daughters, whose rigid childhood is described in a book that’s sparking debates about Asian-American student success. . . ."

6. Obama Budget Proposes Significant Increase for Schools, by Sam Dillon and Tamar Lewin - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/us/15education.html?_r=1&hpw

"Last year, the president said that, to remain competitive, the nation must increase the number of college graduates. But forced to make deep cuts in many areas of government, the president now proposes to eliminate some provisions of the Pell program, which has doubled in size over five years, and serves nine million low-income students."

7. President's Budget Protects Pell Grants, but Makes Cuts to Career and Technical Education, by Kelly Field - http://chronicle.com/article/Presidents-Budget-Protects/126370/

‎"To maintain a maximum Pell award of $5,550, the president's fiscal 2012 budget would eliminate the in-school interest subsidy on loans to graduate students and end a policy that allows students to receive two Pell Grants in a single year. It would provide level support for most other student-aid programs, including Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants and Federal Work-Study, while making deep cuts to career and technical education. . . ."

8. Colleges embrace older students, part-timers, by Sandra Block - http://usat.ly/fUa604 via @USATODAY

‎"That means many non-traditional students must pay the entire cost of their education, which is why it often takes them several years to earn their degrees, O'Riley says. That's how Conlan handled her tuition bills. She and her husband took out a home-equity line of credit to help pay for their children's college education, and she didn't want to take on any more debt."

9. How to avoid college scholarship and aid scams - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-life/how-to-avoid-scholarship-scams.html

‎"There is no fee to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). But there are a number of websites that charge you money to do it. Many people try to find application on-line with the wrong terms: fasfa com, fasfa edu, fasfa gov, fasfa gov edu, FASA, fasa com, fasa edu, fasa gov, fasa gov edu. They can wind up on a website that asks you to pay a fee to file the form, and sometimes, to file the wrong form. The correct website is http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/#. If you need help, talk to your school’s financial aid officer or call 1-800-433-3243."

10. Why Obama’s 2020 graduation goal isn’t attainable - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/high-school/why-obamas-2020-graduation-goa.html

‎"A 2010 study of Chicago students found that fewer than 20 percent of students who were below grade level in third grade attended college, compared to about a third of students who were at grade level, and nearly 60 percent of students who were reading above grade level. It would take some sort of miracle to turn around that cohort of kids. Don’t count on it."

11. Bar education consultants' race to the cash: editorial cleveland.com: http://t.co/AQr5XxK

"Now that the Ohio Department of Education has been promised $194 million and 487 school districts and charter schools are getting $206 million from Race to the Top, contractors and vendors are swarming like bees to honey. And the consultants' cut -- in fees, conference costs, overhead and salary -- could be hefty, Plain Dealer reporter Edith Starzyk found in a special report in collaboration with Andrew Brownstein, a freelance writer with Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news outlet, and the Education Writers Association."

12. Ohio State, Miami universities accused of racial bias in admissions, by Encarnacion Pyle - http://t.co/jZ1PyxA

"The Center for Equal Opportunity released a study this morning that it says shows that the schools treat undergraduate students with similar academic records differently. It says black students were favored at Miami by a ratio of 10-1 over white students with similar ACT scores, and that the ratio at Ohio State was 8-to-1. When comparing students with similar SAT scores, the group found a ratio of 8-1 ratio at Miami and 3-to-1 at Ohio State."

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186. MVCAP fyi

See free MVCAP e-books on college admissions and financial aid for sharing, printing, and downloading at our online resource library: http://issuu.com/mvcap

1. Student killed in shooting near Ohio university - http://bit.ly/gQdh1S #cnn

"Hughes said the shooting is a surprise. "It's sad because young people here are trying to turn around a lot of things," he said. "That campus is a bright shining star."

2. Tragedy at a Party, by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/fu8HZF

‎"A statement from Youngstown State said that university police believe that there is no threat to the campus, but that security there has been heightened as a precaution. Cynthia E. Anderson, president of the university, went to the local hospital where shooting victims were treated to talk with students and their families. In a statement, she said that the "tragic act of violence" made Sunday "a sad day for the YSU family."

3. Bad Apples or More? by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/g3gqjx

"The review finds that 53 of the 120 universities in the NCAA’s top competitive level, the Football Bowl Subdivision, were found by the NCAA's Division I Committee on Infractions to have committed major rules violations from 2001 to 2010. That number appears to have held largely constant from the previous two decades, but the 2000s show that the number of colleges that committed serious violations of the association’s academic rules nearly doubled, to 15 from 8 in the 1990s."

4. Toughen NCAA Academic Rules, by Gerald S. Gurney - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/gQnAHI

‎"A more critical analysis suggests that the recent patterns of serious institutional involvement in academic fraud may be related to predictable consequences of changes in the 2003 NCAA initial eligibility legislation that certify woefully underprepared athletes as qualified to compete in the college classroom."

5. New Data Show Students at For-Profit Colleges Twice As Likely To Default On Loans - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/03/for-profit-students-default-loans-new-data_n_818507.html?ir=College

"In addition, students taking out loans at for-profit schools were responsible for nearly half of all federal student loan defaults within the three-year timeframe, even though students enrolled at such institutions made up less than 15 percent of college students nationwide."

6. What to Expect From the Revised AP U.S. History Program, by Erik Robelen: http://t.co/qaMEpuR

"Unlike the current AP U.S. history course, the new curriculum framework lays out clear expectations for what students need to understand about different periods in American history," he writes. "These understandings are written at a high conceptual level in order to allow teachers to illustrate them with appropriate examples of historical actors and events drawn from each period."

7. A Letter to My President—The One I Voted for... by Paul Karrer: http://t.co/7mGX0dN via @educationweek

"It’s not bad teaching that got things to the current state of affairs. It’s pure, raw poverty. We don’t teach in failing schools. We teach in failing communities. It’s called the ZIP Code Quandary. If the kids live in a wealthy ZIP code, they have high scores; if they live in a ZIP code that’s entombed with poverty, guess how they do?"

8. Best college essay ever? by Valerie Strauss - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-admissions/best-college-essay-ever.html

‎"After receiving it again recently, I found the the author, a writer named Hugh Gallagher, to find out the real history of the piece. Gallagher told me that he wrote the essay when he was 17 for a high school writing contest. He won (and the essay was published in Harper's Magazine). He did then use the essay as part of his applications when he applied to five colleges about two decades ago. He attended New York Univ. . . ."

9. Financial Aid Fundamentals: File the FAFSA Now! -

http://www.top-colleges.com/blog/2011/02/05/financial-aid-fundamentals-file-your-fafsa-now/

‎"That means it is critically important for students – those that are college bound or already enrolled in degree programs – to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as soon as possible. Almost all forms of financial aid – including scholarships, grants and student loans – use the FAFSA as the foundation for award decisions."

10. College search would end with Harvard’s ‘yes,’ by Richard O. Jones - http://t.co/EHUnnOk via @oxfordpress

"Although he’s applied to 17 colleges — large and small, near and far — if Badin High School senior Raymond Dong gets the acceptance letter he most wants, he’ll be heading to Harvard next fall."

11. Are football stars really heroes, or just famous? by Sharon Jayson -USATODAY.com http://t.co/MCFwnMm

"But are the players on the field really heroes, or just celebrities?
Those who study heroism say there is a tendency to confuse it with fame or celebrity worship, which has sparked some researchers to take a closer look at just what makes a hero in the 21st century."

12. Footballer: 'Are you OK with destroying a kid's brain for this game?' by Stephanie Smith - http://bit.ly/fakTTc #cnn

‎"Can you ever make football so that no one gets hurt? No. People are going to get hurt," said Nowinski, president of the Sports Legacy Institute. "But you can eliminate certain drills, you modify certain drills, minimize certain drills...eliminate dumb things like 'bull in the ring.'"

13. To Close Gaps, Schools Focus on Black Boys, by Winnie Hu - http://nyti.ms/gh0mHj

“I think this is a form of racial profiling in the public school system,” said the coalition’s executive director, Michael Meyers. “What they’re doing here, under the guise of helping more boys, is they’re singling them out and making them feel inferior or different simply because of their race and gender.”

14. New NAEP Science Scores Reveal Significant Achievement Gaps, by Jasmine Harley - http://www.civilrights.org/archives/2011/02/1140-naep.html

"Black 4th-graders and 8th-graders scored on average 36 pts lower than their White counterparts and Black 12th-graders scored on average 34 pts lower than their White counterparts; Hispanic 4th-graders scored on average 32 pts lower than their White counterparts. The gap decreases to 30 pts in 8th grade and to 25 pts in 12th grade. . . ."

15. Why the stakes are so much higher now, by Audrey Kahane - NorthJersey.com http://t.co/CNn1zIg via @NorthJerseybrk

"The college admission process wasn't nearly as anxiety-producing 30 years ago. As I often tell parents, we probably wouldn't be admitted if we had to apply to our alma maters today. Parents have heard enough stories from friends and relatives whose high-achieving children have been turned down by schools that would have been considered "safe" 30 years ago to know that this is true, but they still don't understand why things are so different now."

16. What Is The Achievement Gap? Education Equality Project: http://t.co/64ElJ3h

"The huge difference in academic performance between students from different economic circumstances and racial/ethnic backgrounds is what we call the achievement gap."

17. Educators missed lesson on segregation, by Tony Norman - http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11035/1122872-153.stm

"At McCaskey East High School in Lancaster, 11th-grade black students were placed in separate homerooms with black teachers for six minutes a day, starting in December. The theory was that black students are more likely to take education seriously if they have a mentor who shares their racial background."

18. The Harvard Effect, by Timothy Noah - http://www.slate.com/id/2283744/

"At the end of 2007, Harvard announced that it would limit tuition to no more than 10% of family income for families earning up to $180,000. (It also eliminated all loans, following a trail blazed by Princeton, and stopped including home equity in its calculations of family wealth.) Yale saw and raised to $200,000, and other wealthy colleges weighed in with variations."

19. 8 Big Changes to College Admissions in 2010 and 2011, by Kim Clark - US News and World Report: http://t.co/uVIryt4

"Interviews with admissions officers at some of the nation's most popular colleges reveal recent and important shifts in the weighting of traditional admission factors. . . . College officials outline 8 major changes to their admissions practices that will affect applicants from now on:"

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179. MVCAP fyi

See free MVCAP e-books on college admissions and financial aid for sharing, printing, and downloading at our online resource library: http://issuu.com/mvcap

1. After Tucson, schools seek aid to track trouble - USATODAY.com - http://t.co/QO6zSHK

"College mental health workers report greater concern about disruptive students since the mass shooting in Tucson, resulting in more calls from faculty, requests for special training and reassessments of campus procedures."

2. The President as College Counselor, by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/ijx2Qq

"While the law automatically pegs increases in the popular Pell Grant program to the rate of inflation, my colleagues David M. Herszenhorn and Tamar Lewin wrote at the time that "for individual students, the increase in the maximum Pell grant — to $5,900 in 2019-20, from $5,550 for the 2010-11 school year — is minuscule, compared with the steep, inexorable rise in tuition for public and private colleges alike."

3. Pressures of High School and Economy Weigh on College Freshmen, by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/ftTrmJ

"In Today’s Times, my colleague Tamar Lewin reports that “the emotional health of college freshmen — who feel buffeted by the recession and stressed by the pressures of high school — has declined to the lowest level since an annual survey of incoming students started collecting data 25 years ago.” The survey is called “The American Freshman: National Norms,” and it involves more than 200,000 incoming, full-time students."

4. Stressed, Yet Hopeful, by Allie Grasgreen - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/hZxIjU

"And schoolwork isn’t the only thing dragging students down: incoming freshmen are also still feeling the impact of the recession, reporting higher use of loans and financial aid, and limits on where they could opt to attend college. But despite all that, they’re more optimistic about their college educations – in terms of success, experience and satisfaction – than they’ve been in nearly 30 years."

5. Letter to President Obama on Regulation of For-Profits: http://cdn.publicinterestnetwork.org/assets/80e95d84805cc5b0a5e0e3c35af6cee4/GERegulation-LetterToPresObama-January26-2011final.pdf

"Consumer and Minority Groups Urge Tough Rule on For-Profit Colleges"

6. Everyone's Battle: Confronting College Depression, by Julia Lurie - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-lurie/everyones-battle-confront_b_813685.html

"Those girls are me. I came to Yale University with a history of insomnia, anxiety, and mild depression, but optimistic about my ability to move beyond it. During freshman and sophomore years the problem persisted in waves, but at most to a degree of severe discomfort--not disability. I decided to take a leave of absence during the fall semester of my junior year to confront these issues, hoping to come back to Yale headed in the right direction."

7. 10 Most Prestigious Scholarships In America, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/JPMUxo3

"While there are billions of dollars available through college scholarships, only a select few offer prestige along with the college bucks. Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of FastWeb and the author of a new book, Secrets To Winning a Scholarship, has compiled a list of the most prestigious scholarships in the country. Here are the top 10:"

8. Linking After-School Learning to College, by Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily - http://t.co/RlssO3S

"The brief explores how after-school learning can open students' eyes to their college potential, as well as easing them away from more risky paths. The report calls middle school a "critical time" to engage students and says after-school programs can offer crucial supports through apprenticeships, guest speakers, and "project-based activities."

9. Record Level of Stress Found in College Freshmen, by Tamar Lewin - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/education/27colleges.html?_r=1&hp

“Brian Van Brunt: . . . “More students are arriving on campus with problems, needing support, and today’s economic factors are putting a lot of extra stress on college students, as they look at their loans and wonder if there will be a career waiting for them on the other side.”

10. A Profile of This Year's Freshmen - http://chronicle.com/article/A-Profile-of-This-Years/126067/

"Who they are, what they think, and what they hope to achieve"

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